Endure
by Talasir
Summary: An I Am Legend fanfic. The tale of a girl and her twin sister; survivors of KV living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She sends messages by way of a messenger dove to all corners of the earth, searching for other survivors.
1. prologue

_My name is Kaori Driscoll. I am fourteen years old. I am a survivor living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The dove that is carrying this message has flown to all corners of the earth, searching for other survivors. If you find this message, send one back. _

_If you are out there, please know, you are not alone._

_Two years earlier._

The first time I saw her on the news, I knew something was not quite right. Dr. Krippin's miracle cure for cancer. By reversing the affects of the measles virus, she had been able to create a good virus that would eliminate all traces of cancer in the body.

My family was sitting around our TV in the living room, as they always did at five o'clock. I didn't like the news, so I usually stayed in my room and drew.

But this time, I sat down on the couch, snuggled up with my dad, and watches as Dr. Krippin announced the cure for cancer.

My mother's brow furrowed, "This seems to good to be true."

My father shrugged, "It's probably one of those things where 'the cure is worse than the disease.' I agree with you, Sherri. It seems to good to be true."

I agreed. My oldest brother said that it might work, and my second oldest brother agreed with him. But my third oldest brother said that it couldn't possibly work. My older sister thought it was a miracle, and that it had to work. There was no evidence that it didn't!

She was always so shallow.

My twin sister and I often shared the same opinion about stuff like this, and with a single glance at each other, we knew that neither of us liked the idea.

I mean, a cure for cancer was great, but if it actually worked was another problem all together. From what Dr. Krippin said, all of the patients that had been tested with the cure had become cancer free. But it said nothing more, nothing about if the patience had come down with something else. She didn't list the side-effects of this cure, and that left doubts. Sometimes cures like this often had a risk of heart attack, stroke, ulcers or some other horrible infliction. If it _didn't _have _any _side effects, then I knew that there was something wrong with it. Nothing like that could ever exist without some backfire.

I strode back to my room, plopped down on my pink recliner in front of my desk and began surfing the web on my laptop. Everywhere I found news of Dr. Krippin's miracle cure. I searched around to see if the recipients of this cure had any side effects.

My twin sister, Daryl, came into my room.

"Find anything?" she asked.

"Not yet," I replied, "Everywhere I go they're praising the work of Dr. Krippin!" I said, waving my arms for drama.

Daryl came up and sat down on the arm of the recliner.

"I know a site where you might find something," she said. I leaned to the side to allow her to type. She typed an address in the browser, then clicked enter. It went to a governmental site where all the latest news, information and projects were kept. She clicked on a link, but it led to a page that read "Top Secret. You are not authorized to access this information."

"We'll see about that." Said Daryl, and began typing furiously. She pressed enter, and the page read "access granted," and continued to another page.

"Did," I said with surprise, "did you just _hack _into top secret governmental information?"

"Hey," said Daryl, "they shouldn't keep this stuff from the people, if there is anything wrong with Dr. Krippin's cure, we ought to know about it. Besides, no governmental mumbo jumbo security lock can keep out the Daryl, sis." she nudged me with her elbow.

I leaned closer to the screen and began reading.

"Log of General Hart. October 12th, 2009. Today Dr. Krippin broadcast on international television telling about her cure for all types of cancer. Dr. Krippin's cure is certainly a work of genius, but some are skeptical about it's effectiveness. All patients that were treated are now free of cancer, and are being monitored by governmental agents as well as expert scientists. I have, myself, visited the facility where they are being lodged, and they all seem to be doing well."

I kept reading the General's log, and it continued to say how the patients were doing well. Then, at the bottom of the page, I clicked a link to the next page. A popup appeared on the screen that said "Warning. This is top secret information. Do you wish to continue?"

"Yes we wish to continue, you moron," said Daryl, and I clicked "ok."

On that page was another log by the General, but this one was quite different. It read: "October 20th, 2009."

"That's today." I said. Daryl nodded.

"A few of the patients seem to be exhibiting signs of the flu. Those have been separated to prevent the flu from spreading to the healthy patients, and are now being treated. The healthy patients seem to be doing fine, although they complain from now and then about wanting to see their families, and some of them complain about being hungry, although they are being fed well. The patience inflicted with influenza seem to be having trouble getting over their illness, and many have coughed up blood. The docters and scientists are working hard, and the patients should be fine in a matter of days."

There the General's log ended.

Daryl's face screwed up, "Well that wasn't of much help. All the patients seem to be doing fine. It's just a matter of time though. We can check back here every day to see what this General writes."

I nodded, "The people that got the flu… that might be a side effect of the vaccine, do you think?"

Daryl shrugged, "Probably. Although I've never seen anyone with the flu cough up blood before. That's usually an advanced stage of…" her face went blank for a moment, "Oh I forget. Oh well. Some kind of really bad sickness."

"Ok. We'll check back on this site every day. Don't tell mom or dad or any of them we're doing this, though. They might not approve." I said.

"What about Bruce?" Asked Daryl, "Do you think he should know?"

I nodded. Bruce was my best friend, and we had known each other for a little over a year now. I trusted him.

"Ok then." Daryl sighed, "Let's hope this thing _doesn't _turn out to be anything bad."

_O_ver the next few days, myself, Daryl, and Bruce, who was staying for the week, visited General Hart's log while the rest of our family watched the news.

The General continued talking about the patient's conditions, and how the patients with influenza didn't seem to be getting any better, despite the doctor's and scientist's efforts.

On October 25th, we read: "Several of the patients have died. The cause is unknown, but autopsies are being organized to find out the cause. Many of the other patients have also fallen sick. What their epidemic is, we do not know. The patients stricken with influenza are steadily getting worse. No medicine seems to be working. The patients with influenza are showing increased levels of aggression, and do not let many people come near them. In short, we believe that Dr. Krippin's supposed cure is causing a worse infliction than cancer. We are afraid, this information cannot be kept from the public for very much longer. We must soon release it. Dr. Robert Nevel has been notified of the current circumstances, and he is working with our leading scientists to discover what exactly is happening to our patients. Dr. Krippin has not been notified. Hopefully, we will find an explanation and an ending to this strange occurrence."

Bruce crossed his arms, "This all sounds like something from a bad mystery movie. Looks like you were right, Kaori. This cure is too good to be true. It seems like only a fraction of the patients that were treated are doing fine."

A lump caught in my throat. I felt sorry for the poor people that were being used as human guinea pigs, and had come down with these strange sicknesses, or that had died. But more than the feeling of pity was an overwhelming sense of fear. Fear of what was to come. If they couldn't stop this strange occurrence… I didn't know what would happen. I was afraid. Afraid for my family, for Bruce, for the patients that had been treated.

Afraid for the world.

And so it began.

This is my story.

This is the legend.


	2. Chapter 1

A few crows cawed from the top of a tall building. On the broken concrete streets, grass grew from the cracks, along with many little purple Johnny Jump-ups. Here and there squirrels scampered across the street with a nut in their mouth. The roots of the trees on the sidewalk stretched over the road in a few places. Many of the wide sidewalk's bricks lay broken, or else they were covered with moss or ivy, as were many of the old brick buildings. Over some, large white tarps were hung.

The stage theater, the Paramount. It's old movie theater-like sign was broken, one end laying on the ground. On the front black broken letters spelled out, "Les Miserables, performed by the Cedar Rapids drama academy." Other letters on the sign had fallen off, making anything else the sign said unreadable.

The ruined city was quiet, except for the wind hissing through the empty buildings, and birds chirping and flittering to their nests.

In one part of the city was an open manhole surrounded by caution tape and orange cones. The hole led down into the sewer, into inky blackness and a foul smell… not only of the sewer water.

At the south exit of the city was a masive traffic jam of empty, abandoned cars, stretching for nearly half a mile outside the city. Outside the main city was a large neighborhood of small houses beside the interstate. Trees and plants had overgrown yards, torn down buildings, chewed up concrete. Hedges and flower gardens overflowed their boundaries.

Amazing what can happen to them after only two years of neglect.

A helicopter was imbedded in the corner of a building, it's tail broken and protruding out of the smashed bricks, of which many lay on the ground. The place where the helicopter had smashed into the building was charred black, and the white exterior of the helicopter was too, the paint peeling off and melted, glass broken in, metal dented. Inside the helicopter, the rotted and decaying remains of the pilots.

The rain that year had given rise to many parts of the city flooding, and there was now a permanent lake where the river used to be.

All that was left of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Who am I kidding… it was no worse than every city in the world. It was probably better in some respects, since it wasn't as big as some cities like New York.

The sun was high in the sky. Plenty of time to go foraging, as was our custom every Monday.

When I say us, I mean just me, my twin sister Daryl and Bruce. The only survivors.

Daryl was at the east side of the city, the "good" part of town. Bruce was at the south side, and I was at the north side, going through the lower apartments and businesses.

So far I had only found a few things of interest, some microwave dinners in a freezer that was, amazingly, still cold. Some dry freeze, medicine, spices and some cheese.

As I surveyed the kitchen of the apartment I was in; mold growing in several places, the floor stained with dirt and a cold chill in the air, I thought for a moment.

"We need to go to Wal-mart," I said to myself

The Wal-mart was several miles away, but we could get their easily by driving. The roof had caved in in several places, so that the whole building wasn't left in total darkness. Which was good, it meant that… _they _wouldn't be there. We usually went there when we needed something we couldn't find by foraging, and usually only went there twice a month.

I hoisted the strap of my bag higher on my shoulder and walked out of the building. When outside, I hopped on my dark blue motorcycle, started it up, and drove back home.

For us, home was a large-ish house just outside of downtown. Because of our once big family, it had to be big to accommodate everyone. We had a fair sized yard, bigger than most of the yards of the other houses. We had cleared it of trees to allow more lights and let the grass grow. Daryl planted maragolds around our yard, because she said it helped keep _them _away. They didn't like the smell or something.

I drove my bike into our side garage and shut it off. I sat the for a moment, looking at the dark green charger that sat at the far end. Dad's car. He found it in a scrap heap, rusting and decaying. He bought it for a hundred dollars and brought it home. Mom thought the was crazy. But over the years, he fixed it up, got it re-painted, and soon enough he was driving around the neighborhood in his perfect condition Dodge Charger. It was his pride and joy, besides us kids anyway. He always loved cars and things on wheels. He taught me to ride a motorcycle when I was just eight, much to the angering of my mom.

I smiled at the memories, then shed a tear that they were past. I got off my bike and walked back outside to watch for Daryl and Bruce.

Not long before the sun began sinking toward the horizon, Bruce drove up on his ATV, hauling a trailer with something huge, gray and boxy in it.

I stood and smiled at him.

He leapt off of the ATV and pointed at the trailer, "I found another generator, Kaori!" He exclaimed.

I hugged him and then went to inspect the generator. It was in pretty good condition, and looked like it hadn't been used hardly at all.

"Where did you find it?" I asked.

Bruce ran a hand through his blonde hair and then put his bomber hat back on. "The library, if you can believe it. There are lots of windows there, so the infected haven't ever lived there. I found it in a storage closet. That should power our house for the next three years if need be, maybe longer. Or something really big for three hours."

"Like what?" I asked.

Bruce shrugged, the bullet rounds hung on his shoulder clicking, "I don't know, maybe a bunch of high-powered million watt spot lights. I found some the other day, and I was thinking about rigging them up to a powerful generator just in case the infected found us and started attacking. Those things would burn them up faster than fire burns gunpowder"

"Fire doesn't burn gunpowder, it makes it explode. But I see your point, it might be a good idea. Although if we're careful to pour bleach around every time we come back we shouldn't have that problem."

Bruce nodded, "Still, just in case. I was also thinking of setting some explosives around our house which could be detonated if the lights didn't work."

I raised an eyebrow, "Where would you find those?"

Bruce reached inside a burlap sack that was in the trailer along with the generator. He pulled out four packs of dynamite, a few mines, and some other kind of huge explosive that I didn't recognize.

"Wow," I mused, "where did you find those?"

Bruce gave me a mischievous look from under the brim of his hat, "I found a terrorist hole. Turns out that, before the virus spread, there was a gang of terrorists here and they were planning to blow up Cedar Rapids. There's more where this came from," He tossed a stick of dynamite in the air and caught it again.

Although I was confused about why terrorists would want to blow up Cedar Rapids, it didn't really matter now.

I helped Bruce with the generator, putting it on a wheeled furniture-mover and rolling it into the house.

"Did you by any chance see Daryl on your way back?" I asked Bruce.

He nodded, "Yeah, I passed by her and asked her if she wanted a ride back home, but she said would make her own way home. My guess is that she found something interesting."

I nodded. I hoped she would make it back before sunset, though.

We pushed the generator next to our other three generators and turned it on. It hummed for a moment then erupted into a dull roar. We switched some of the plugs into it, then went into the kitchen and washed our hands. I grabbed a plastic bottle full of bleach, went outside, and poured the bleach all over the concrete all the way out to the street. After it was empty, I strode back into the house.

In the kitchen, Bruce was standing by the sink, turning a plate in his hands, water dripping from them. He had a solemn look.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He sighed, "Everything. Everything is wrong. The virus, always living in fear, having to take so many precautions…" It almost looked like he was going to cry. Bruce never cried, "What happened to our families. I just can't believe it happened. The virus has a 90 percent kill rate, a 1 percent immunity, and the rest turned into those… monsters. Those non-immune people that hid themselves, trying to wait out the epidemic, stepped out too early and eventually turned. The immune people… most of them were killed by the infected."

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, "I know. But we must not be downcast. Someone out there may discover a cure." He sighed again. I kissed him on the cheek, "Everything is going to be ok. As long as we have each other, right? We'll survive."

He smiled at me. I smiled back.

An hour later, just before sunset, Daryl returned. She had found some secret DVDs containing the research and observations of the scientists that had studied the patients that were treated and cured from their cancer. She said the DVDs might contain something that we didn't know.

I put them with the rest of the DVDs. It was too late to watch any right now, the sun was setting, and the house had to be closed up.

We went around the house, pulling down the shades on the windows and pulling the giant wooden doors we had built over them shut, and locked them. We locked all of the doors. The house was left in darkness except for a few lights.

Bruce, Daryl and I sat on the couch in the living room, a blanket pulled over us, as each of us, one by one, drifted off to sleep.


End file.
